Monday, August 10, 2015

C.W. Stewart’s New York Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up

NYT • 8/10/15 • Mon • Stewart • no 0810 • solution

Revealer at 58-across: [“Smile!” … or a hint to the ends of the answers to the five starred clues] SAY CHEESE. Rather than types of cheese, the relevant bits describe some of the shapes that the comestibles may be obtained in.

So, six medium-long theme answers, and the grid doesn’t groan horribly with the weight. Impressive. Further, it’s all rather Scrabbly, despite lacking J, Q, and V.

As for the answers themselves, probably cubes or cubed would be better than just cube. It’s kind of the odd one out, anyway, more akin to slices, or shredded. Saaay, do you think the grid layout is sort of divided into … chunks?

29d [Contented cat sounds] PURRS. I’m going to keep pointing out clues that promulgate this erroneous notion. Okay, it isn’t completely erroneous but it’s insufficient enough to promote a lot of misunderstanding. Cats purr for many reasons, including when they’re frightened or ill-at-ease and definitely not contented. This to me seems distinct from a clue such as 14a [Back end of a hammer] (oh I just noticed that that answer intersects with 4d END) for PEEN; there are plenty of hammer designs that have a claw—or another face—there, so PEEN isn’t accurate in all instances but the insufficiency doesn’t strike me as egregiously misleading.

Favorite clue: 16a [Like some screws and translations] LOOSE.

A crossword with a more than decent tang.

Kevin Christian’s Los Angeles Times crossword — pannonica’s write-up

LAT • 8/10/15 • Mon • Christian • solution

Grab your gear and hold your breath—oh wait, no need for that second part. 35a [Underwater activity that requires the ends of 16-, 20-, 53- and 58-Across] SCUBA DIVING.

Seeing 1-across FREE, I can’t help but think of the very recent disappearance and strongly presumed death of Natalia Molchanova. And then I looked at its symmetrical complement, 65a SOON, and wondered if it could be altered to SKIN.

Quite a lot of abbrevs. and fill-in-the-blank/partials today. LDL, OSU, IDA, ANAT, STDS, AMT, LDL, IRA, THE A, SITU, HAW, KHAN, EINE, ELSE, FREE, MILLI, ESPRIT, END OF. Obviously, not all had to be presented as such. And to be clear, such clues aren’t inherently bad or unwelcome, but too many can wear on a body.

Good morning, everyone! I hope you all had a pretty good weekend once again. Now…who doesn’t want to start their week of crosswords with Mr. Bob Klahn?!? Well, even if you don’t want the crunchy stuff at the beginning of the week, you just got it anyway! (Ha!) As for today’s Klahn special, each of the four theme answers are puns created by excising the beginning letters of “RE” from the usual term/phrase, leaving the puns as the answers.

To be honest, I believe Bob went easy on non-speed solvers like myself today. (Here’s hoping he won’t turn up the heat for next time!) Though I didn’t put it in immediately, I was very confident that CB’S was the entry to start off the grid (1A: [Trucker trackers]). But, as per usual in puzzles from Bob, I jumped around to see if I could get a foothold somewhere, and I definitely got that in the Southwest, with BENATAR being the first to fall there (40D: [“Hit Me With Your Best Shot” singer Pat]). Another music-related clue adjacent to it also was a gimme, and that really opened it all up to start. (See “sports…smarter” section to know which one I’m talking about.) The across clues in that area were pretty much layups after that, with TATAMIS (57A: [Some judo mats]), PG-RATED (63A: [Like “Ice Age” and “Frozen”]) and my personal favorite down there, ON A DIME (60A: [Instantly, idiomatically]). As a sports broadcaster and part-time play-by-play broadcaster, I know that I’ve used the phrase “stopped on a dime” a few times in the past while on the air! Overall, there wasn’t one clue in which I was totally lost, even after filling in the answer. And yes, that includes DIDY, as I didn’t confuse “nappy” for a slang term for a baby’s siesta (21D: [Nursery nappy]). But this is the first time I’d ever heard of the word “didy,” and now I’ll be saying that word in my head anytime I see a parent change a baby’s diaper. Loved the fill (and the clue) of ARMRESTS (41A: [Targets of hostile elbow exchanges]) and really appreciated the trivia nature to VANESSA (19A: [First name invented by Jonathan Swift, for his paramour, Esther Vanhomrigh]). Is it possible that I actually had fun while doing a puzzle from Bob?!? A labor of love, instead of just labor?! All kidding aside, given the struggles I always have in making headway in any of his great puzzles, I really was on his wavelength today, which made things much easier! Ok, now on to that other music clue that I referenced earlier…

“Sports will make you smarter” moment of the day: MUSTANG (39D: [“All you wanna do is ride around Sally” ride (Wilson Pickett lyric]) – “Ride, Sally, Ride!” Though this clue gave me the best earworm to have of any music-related crossword clue in a long time, I thought about how Mr. Klahn could have made this a tougher clue, and all he would have to do is bring sports into play. If the clue read “Cal Poly athlete” or “Hall of Fame running back Eric Dickerson, as a collegian,” would you have been able to get MUSTANG from that? Well, Mustangs is the nickname of both the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo collegiate sports teams, as well as the teams at Southern Methodist University (SMU), the university that Eric Dickerson attended.

Thank you for your time, and I’ll see you tomorrow…from Montréal no less!

Take care!

Ade/AOK

Themeless Monday #327 by Brendan Emmett Quigley – Gareth’s Review

THEMELESS MONDAY #327

Generally this is a solid themeless, with two prominent 3×11 stacks. The stacks themselves have about 1 1/2 top answers each – the best answers tended actually to be distributed amongst the shorter fill. There were few clunkers, the biggest of which is the contrived plural chemical suffix (!) ENES.

[UFC fighter with the fastest title round finish (14 seconds), RONDAROUSEY. Needed all the crossers. Still, nice that the puzzle acknowledges the popularity of the sport. At the moment UFC itself doesn’t even seem to be acceptable fill. Her Wikipedia article suggests she also achieved success in Olympic judo and WWE.

[Prepared food?:Abbr.], GMO. Another TLA you’d expect to see more in contemporary puzzles.

[Birds in the bush], EMUS. Bush is South African slang for uninhabited areas. It was appropriated by the Aussies at some point.

[2015 World Cup Golden Glove winner], SOLO. Hope Solo.

[Rajasthan’s capital], JAIPUR. The Rajasthan Royals play out of SMS Stadium, Jaipur if that helps…

Cheap clue: [Place to pick up some roses?], WINESTORE deliberately leaves out the accent. Was still pretty obvious.

18 Responses to Monday, August 10, 2015

“… probably cubes or cubed would be better than just cube. It’s kind of the odd one out, anyway, more akin to slices, or shredded”

I took the theme answers to be ” ‘noun’ of cheese,” so I guess “cubes” would work, though that would be the only plural in the group. “Slice” would certainly be okay, but “cubed” or “shredded” wouldn’t fit, to my ear.

What might be bothering pannonica a bit is that the nouns are a mix of forms that you find cheese in the shop (block and wheel, for instance) and cut it for serving (cube and wedge, for instance). Cube is arguably the only form that you would not buy at the fromagerie, but you do not normally serve a “slab,” but would serve a “wedge” cut from it. Similarly, a “wheel” is not normally a serving format.

If forced to put them in two piles I would say block, wheel and slab are the “obtained forms” and cube and wedge are the serving forms. Is that inconsistent? Not to me, but perhaps to other solvers.

No, I was thinking purely in terms of configurations of how cheese may be purchased (in supermarkets as well as from cheesemongers). Wedges from larger wheels are quite prevalent, often prepackaged. But one rarely if ever sees a single cube of any size.

Because Martin Herbach was gracious enough to help me figure out how to get the CS puzzles into Across Lite format, I got to do my first Klahn puzzle in a very long time. I’m a happy camper. It was a darn good puzzle!

You could assume that, but you would be wrong. My wife and I account for two of the “1” votes, but I have no idea as to the identity of the others. A similar discussion ensued following the previous Klahn puzzle. Why does it seem to be so difficult to fathom that there are quite a few solvers who simply do not like Klahn’s cluing?

BEQ – I really liked the eights linking the sevens on either side in the downs. I also liked the upper triple stack. There were three places where I stutter stepped. 28A – I don’t equate shrimps and prawns; 51A – a COMET doesn’t streak across the sky like a meteor. The tail is created by solar radiation (layman alert) blowing volatile ‘things’ off the comet. And 16A – UIE or UEY, the spelling seems to depends on the situation. For the constructor. As for relevance the word seems as current to me as ‘Chinese fire drill’.